Not to brag but over Christmas I was given one of the best Christmas gifts I have ever received. Actually, it was a brilliant collection of gifts that included a fabulous orange travel tea tumbler (yes I’m that person, I take it everywhere extolling the virtues of tea), a vinyl copy of the equally – if not more – fabulous be-zebra-ed recent musical outing from the Scissor Sisters: Magic Hour, and a onesie. It’s the kind of total knockout gift from which’s one two punch one finds it hard to recover.

And by that I mean it was totes amaze.

The onesie is an original OnePiece from Norway (and yes I am that person who says “it’s from Norway”). More specifically it’s a Lusekofte and it’s beyond amazing. Bringing comfort and style in droves I am rarely out of it around the house and have started wearing it on the odd excursion further afield. I wore it over Christmas to the movie theatre with my also be-OnePieced friends – and progenors (might not be a word but I’m going with it) of the gift – Jo and Trevor. I also wore it over to some friends for a recent house party and needless to say I was even more the centre of attention than my usual combination of wit and charm cause me to be.

It really is everything you could possibly want in a garment.

Unless you want easy access for a quick shit. Then perhaps not. But other than that I would say my OnePiece is ready for every social occasion. If you’re going somewhere you don’t think you could wear a onesie then you should probably rethink going there in the first place.

Basically what I’m saying here is that life is better in a OnePiece. End of.

I know this may be hard to believe but I have managed to find something else that annoys me about other people. Actually, more than one thing but they all relate to self-checkouts that have seemingly popped up at every store across the land in the last five years.

My first, and most major, peeve with these technical wonders is that they are not restricted to a certain number of items at many stores. Surely the point of the whole device is to speed up the checkout procedure but if Fanny FullCart pulls up with her 147 items she is surely only slowing the thing down, especially as she has to look up the 24 different types of onions she has.

I would say the blame for this problem should be evenly split between the stores and the individuals who try to self-scan a cart full of groceries. I mean obviously the stores should have signs up with a clear item limit posted – and to be fair some do – but Fanny is still a bit of an asshole for choosing the self-checkout anyway. There’s no way it will speed up her grocery store experience and the volume of other customers with nary a few cucumbers and meals-for-one between them should be a good indicator to queue elsewhere. Stupid Fanny.

This actually leads me into my second problem with self-checkouts which is also related to the stores’ often laissez-faire attitude to their operation: the lack of designated queuing areas. Forcing people to fend for themselves and form an orderly line might seem like a simple ask but it fails to take into account that people are assholes who will do anything to get slightly ahead of their fellow man. Some stores have the areas set up with a clear lane for waiting but other stores – like the bastard Sobey’s by my home – actually makes things miles worse by putting something in the middle of what should be the waiting area. THIS ONLY SPLITS THE QUEUE CONFUSING THE SITUATION FAR MORE THAN IS NECESSARY.

We all know how it goes. One person is waiting so you get behind them and then someone else goes to other side as if that entitles them to go before you. AND STORES ARE ENTITLING THESE ASSHOLES WITH CONFUSING WAITING AREAS! GET IN THE LINE YOU SUBHUMAN TITSNATCH.

Finally, if you have no idea how the machine operates, wait until a day when there is nobody waiting to take your first stab at it. I was at Safeway the other day and I saw a man waving a cucumber in front of the machine for a good five minutes; as if the machine would magically scan a non-existent bar code, extract the money from his wallet and whip up a delightful tzatziki if he just kept swiping at it. If you need assistance of any kind you should probably just be using a regular checkout. End of.

Actually that reminds me of another time I was at a self-checkout with my mother in Calgary and when prompted to scan her Club Card she swiped her Costco card which borderline crashed the machine. Then while waiting in mild embarrassment for assistance I heard a loud “Oh Maria!” Turns out the attendant was well-versed in my mother’s ability to bring the self-checkout to it’s knees with accidental swipes of every card in her wallet.

I suppose as a relatively new technology we as a society are still working out the kinks of the self-checkout system but at some point there will be a self-checkout reckoning and I for one look forward to it.

Well it’s day five of Blapril and it was looking like summer where I am today. The sun was shining and it was even warm enough for me to wear shorts. Although in all honesty the shorts were 50% laundry crisis, 50% weather if I’m being honest as my friend Muriel spilled a hot chocolate all over my everyday jeans and I didn’t feel like wearing my Cher Lloyd Primark jeans to Ikea today.

Anyway, the other reason it felt like summer is that a new Dragonette single has found its way online and is predictably AMAHZING! It is literally aural sunshine! I know I’ve said this before but HOW ARE DRAGONETTE NOT MASSIVE!?!?! Hopefully after “Hello” last year – to recap: Amazing on a global scale but more a Martin Solveig thing than a Dragonette one – they will finally break into the big time. If this single is anything to go by they are set to explode this summer.

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve post about Nicola Roberts but she has become no less amazing in the intervening time; if anything more so. And the world appears to be taking notice. And ripping her off.

Above is a poster from the window display at an Aldo on Robson Street here in Vancouver. The likeness and style are striking in their similarity to one Ms. Nicola Roberts. She literally has never stepped a promotional foot on this continent and yet I see her doppelgänger staring at me from a reasonably priced shoe emporium! Such is the power of Nicola Roberts.

Case in point number two for Nicola’s cultural dominance is Madonna’s recent single “Give me All Your Luvin” which blatantly riffs on the L! O! V! E! from the world-shattering – and vastly superior – Beat of my Drum.

Madonna’s instantly passé attempt just can’t live up to the sheer joie de vivre of Nicola screaming LOVE at us. While Nicola’s is a call to arms, Madonna’s is an old woman begging us to LUV her. Very different, and frankly endemic of Madonna’s recent career but that is a topic for another day. What continues to amaze is how a woman that released the most exciting debut single of 2011, and it’s followup, manages remain on the frays on mainstream culture.

Even when it was clear that the wheels had kind of fallen of the album campaign and Nicola was not about to “break” the mainstream she released Yo-Yo, a song 47 times better than anything on the Lana Del Ray album. And still the Top 40 eludes her. One can only hope that the cultural wave of Nicola is just beginning to crest and that imitation really is the best form of flattery. Be ready world.

Well hello adoring blog readers and welcome to April, or as I am portmanteauing it Blapril. You see in an effort to fan the flames of the creative fire within me – the very fire from which this blog initially began – I shall be attempting to post every day in April – pardon me, Blapril.

My first post today is about a rather embarrassing incident that occurred to me this very evening in West Vancouver. After a delightful trip to Pinkberry for a frozen yoghurt – medium regular yoghurt with pineapple and yoghurt chips, delicious – Cheryl, Muriel and I ventured to the Extra Foods located in, the rather shabby despite its upmarket branding, Park Royal Centre. It was 8pm and as the rest of the mall was long closed the Extra Foods was a bit of a ghost town with only the odd shopper about to distract us.

While wandering around the meat section by myself I began singing along to London Beat’s “I’ve Been Thinking About You” which was quietly playing on the PA system. As I was wandering along the top of the aisles emboldened by the emptiness of the store I got rather into it only to accidentally boom out “SHA-BOW-BOW” as an older Asian gentlemen reached the end of his aisle.

Think about that for a second. Just as he finished with the juices and salty snacks aisle I wandered by practically yelling “SHA-BOW-BOW” in his direction. I sha-bow-bowed a stranger. I can only hope he assumed it’s an up and coming meme like rick-rolling or similar that he had the good fortune to be a part of at the ground level. Perhaps he is now at this very moment sha-bow-bowing his friends and neighbours in West Vancouver. One can only hope.

Just the other day a new “concept” opened to much fanfare at Davie and Howe. As described on their website:

Caya [Come as you are] is a new store with a new perspective. One focused on you. The first of its kind in Canada, and possibly the world, Caya celebrates the individuality in all of us, and supports local LGBTQA initiatives that help others be themselves, fully and openly.

It’s a Telus store for gays.

I’m not sure about this. If it’s goal is to support the LGBTQA – I just checked and the A stands for “allied” – “fully and openly” then why the need for a sub-brand. Why can’t Telus just support the Alphabet Soup community? Do gays really need our own specifically branded Telus store? Is this an attempt at catering to our needs or keeping us at arms length from the corporate brand?

To be fair, it’s a nice ideal. A slightly more upmarket communications store for slightly more upmarket customers that can also act as a community hub for events. Most of the opinions online seem to be taking a “wait and see” approach with this and I thought that was pretty fair.

Until I went to there with my friend Emanuel – another gay – the other day.

I think the branding is relatively good but the product mix is frankly awful and it’s not even immediately clear what products and services they offer. caya’s cell phone offerings are basic Telus offerings just slightly more nicely displayed, which is fair enough, but the accessories just seem like an odd assortment: 8 digital cameras, a few cell phone cases and some random desktop stuff. They do offer digital photo printing but we only discovered this in conversation with a “matchmaker of merchandise” – read: sales associate. I just don’t see this store being particularly successful.

I was shopping for swim trunks the other day [sidenote: I got made fun of at work for using the word “swimmers”] and was struck by the seismic shift that has gone seemingly unnoticed in men’s bathing attire. I first noticed this trend a few years back but it has seemingly only accelerated from there.

It seems that as board shorts overshadow regular trunks in popularity so disappears the mesh pouch that I’m used to keeping my tackle in order.

It’s actually a struggle now trying to find attractive trunks that still have the mesh. I’m not sure if I’m hopelessly old-fashioned but I like to know where everything is when I’m swimming, and therefore continue to be a fan of the lining. I’m rather worried there will be day in the not too distant future when I can no longer find bemeshed trunks and will be forced to flop idly about as I frolic on the beach.

Or perhaps I will have to conform to the square leg swim suits worn by all the popular gays (and Daniel Craig, below). I’m not sure I have quite the figure for that style of suit – modesty being ever our watch word in editorial – but it would undoubtedly keep everything in place.

Until that day I will continue to scour various swimwear establishments in search of the perfect pair of trunks with mesh still intact.

DAMN YOU SURFERS AND YOUR FREE-WHEELIN, FREEBALLIN, ATTITUDE TOWARDS LIFE AND SWIMWEAR.

The other day I was walking home and I got caught behind someone who was drenched in Dolce & Gabbana pour homme. In all fairness I was caught downwind from him but I might as well have been on top of him for how strong the scent was. I know it was Dolce & Gabbana pour homme because I myself sported that fragrance back in my first year of university. In fact, I too used to apply it a little too liberally.

The odour immediately took me back to dousing myself in the slightly sweet smell of Stefano and Domenico. Smells are like that for me. A quick whiff of something and my mind is whisked back to particular time or place. But I digress.

This is all a rather meandering build-up to my actual point which is not that I’ve been getting a lot of positive reaction to my current fragrance – which as you can see from above is Lacoste Essential – even though I have. My point is that I have a friend named Zoie who purchased me this fragrance and who I have decided has an olfactory supersense. Zoie has the unique ability to match a scent to someone’s personality.

Listen, it might not be the stuff of superhero comics, but when was the last time someone actually had x-ray vision?

Never, that’s when.

Now at this point you are probably thinking that one fragrance selection does not supersense make, but Zoie also purchased a scent for Jo-Ann – Burburry: The Beat, I believe – and it too perfectly matched its recipients personality. Amazing. Scientists should study Zoie and then maybe one day you’ll be able to walk into some sort of pod-like thing that figures out the perfect fragrance for you.

I HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE AND IT IS A SORT OF POD-LIKE THING THAT FIGURES OUT THE PERFECT FRAGRANCE FOR YOU!

You can just imagine overbronzed men with spiky hair and be-rhinestoned jeans walking into the pod-like thing and “Ed Hardy pour douchy homme” coming out of the – for some reason (it’s MY future) – dot matrix style printer.

I know that in today’s iPod-centric world a radio may seem like an odd object to purchase but quite the contrary friends. In fact, here is a numbered list of the many (five) reasons that I bought this radio.

1. It looks fantastic and is as much an objet as it is a radio. You sit that bad boy on a shelf and you got yourself some day-core. That room just went from bland to BAM, from drab to fab… (why is it so easy to talk like this? SHUDDER) But yes, I love the way it looks, and $30 is not a huge price to spend for this kind of art object that really will make a desk or occasional table pop and take a space from… (again, SHUDDER)

2. HALF PRICE! I know I mentioned this above, but really sometimes you just have to surrender to fate. This was the last one they had in the shop, in the colour that I wanted and was finally in my price range. No, I don’t need a rubber coated designer radio but I REALLY wanted one and this was literally a significant moment of coincidence, or fate if you believe in those sorts of things.

3. Radio’s are actually quite cool. This little gem takes four AA’s and is splash-proof so I’m going to be rocking it in the shower and at the beach come summer time. Also, I’d forgotten how amazing radio is. Like I have this little green thing that can endlessly play music for free. I once was blind but now I see, or rather I ONCE WAS DEAF AND NOW CAN HEAR! Amazing.

4. Look at it. It is me, if I were a radio. You can’t deny that shit!

5. I said earlier that I had five reasons but as it turns out I only have four so I’m going to use this bullet point to note another resolution I have come up with to add to the six I mentioned the other day. That is that I want to start cleaning up the dishes immediately after eating a meal – or at least later the same night – instead of letting them pile up becoming a huge mess and thus a daunting task that needs to be scheduled rather than the five minutes it takes if you just do them when you use them. Perhaps I can listen to my radio while I do them. FANTASTIC!

So I’m not usually one for New Year’s Resolutions as I think they’re a bit silly. Like if there’s something about your life that you want to change just do it right?

Sidenote: As you may notice above I have listed the recently passed New Year’s Eve as 2009 as technically I believe that’s correct but is that the way it’s referred to vernacularly or would it be New Year’s Eve 2010? I think I’m right but I’m a little confused.

Anyway, despite not being a huge fan of resolutions I have a few this year – and no, one of them is not staying more current with my use of internet memes, I still love the photobomb squirrel even if the rest of the world has moved on to flashmobs and the Slap Chop remix.

1. Purchase things of quality that I actually want as opposed to buying something cheap that I kind of want and not really ever loving it. I shall endeavour to save up for the purchases that I actually want as opposed to shopping more often but less fruitfully.

Par example, I purchased a pair of high tops at Spring before Christmas for $70 but later realized that I was just buying them because I can’t afford these that I covet with ever fibre of my being and to which the high tops bore an ever so slight resemblance. So I have returned the crappy Spring high tops and perhaps one day I will be able to afford the Y-3 shoes. Although that being said I did buy a fantastic pair of summer shoes at Spring for $25 over Christmas but that’s different because they were fantastic and not simply a substitute for something more expensive.

2. Wash my sheets more often. I don’t want you to think that I only rarely wash my sheets which, having re-read that, it kind of sounds like. Rather I don’t have a specific schedule on which I wash me sheets and therefore feel like I’m not washing them enough. Obviously, this point would be moot if was not hopelessly celibate at the minute as sex requires a much more diligent washing frequency but I think I need to establish some sort of schedule so as to be completely satisfied that I’m sleeping on fresh sheets which at the moment, truth be told, I am not.

3. Remind the people that are important to me of that fact. I think I’m generally ok at this but I’d like to be more forthcoming with the word “love” towards the people that I do genuinely love. I don’t mean “in love” but just friends that it would be nice to tell more often.

4. Continue being fantastic.

5. Eat more fresh fruits and vegetables.

6. Participate in a flashmob-style public outing.

Those seem pretty solid, I shall now have to check back at the end of the year and see how well I have done! Probably won’t if being perfectly honest but there you go. Oh, and I’m including an alternate take of the squirrel photobomb below because I love them both so much.